News

Report: iPhones average over 250MB of data use per month

By Charles Starrett ● Monday, February 15, 2010

According to new research performed for Consumer Reports by bill analysis company Validas, iPhone users account for nearly twice as much data usage as the average non-iPhone smartphone user. The study found that iPhone users consume 273 MB of data per month on average, compared to just 54 MB for BlackBerry users and 150 MB for users of other smartphone platforms. Additionally, 12 percent of iPhone users consume at least 500 MB of data per month, and a third of those users consume more than 1 GB of data. Validas’ data is based on user-submitted electronic bills from nearly 14,000 individual consumer wireless cell phone lines, including 757 iPhone and 783 BlackBarry lines. [via Mac Rumors]

Comments

1

1

The reason for the consumption is Google Maps. All else is just gravy.

Posted by Charles Starrett on February 15, 2010 at 12:07 PM (CST)

1

Interesting: if you assume that the 12% who consume 500MB+ per month is made up of 4% who consume exactly 1GB and 8% who consume exactly 500MB (the minimum usage that meets the requirement of this statement, in other words), the average usage of the remaining 88% of iPhone users is 260MB/month. Given that this figure is almost certainly an overestimate, it makes the iPad’s 250MB/month 3G data plan sound like a pretty reasonable option for a large number of users.

Posted by Charles Starrett on February 15, 2010 at 12:46 PM (CST)

1

@3: Whoops - math error. The remaining 88% average 193MB/month.

Posted by Charles Starrett on February 15, 2010 at 12:46 PM (CST)

1

I get my substantial data use is from all my different app’s on my iPhone. Mostly my GPS enabled one’s and games. AT&T should make data packages for those with high data usage to minimize the data traffic.